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The Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Coalition

The PWYP coalition of civil society actors was galvanized by a 1999 Global Witness report that highlighted the questionable role of foreign business actors in Angola’s civil war.#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">[1] Launched in 2002, the PWYP includes over 300 NGOs such as the high profile Save the Children, Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) and Transparency International (TI) and operates in over 50 countries. Since its inception, the PWYP has advocated the mandatory publication of payments made by extractive companies to governments in resource rich countries and the mandatory publication of revenues received by governments from these companies. The PWYP has emphasized the significance of revenue transparency in the prevention of corruption and embezzlement by officials in resource rich states.

More critical, the PWYP contends that “revenue transparency will also help civil society groups to work toward a democratic debate over the effective use and allocation of resource revenues and public finance in order to meet development objectives, improve public services, and redistribute income.”#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title="">[2] The PWYP’s campaigns for mandatory disclosure paved the way for what has been hailed as the Transparency Revolution around natural resource governance. With the increasing global expansion of its membership, the PWYP coalition has underscored the power of norm-setting, helping to influence subsequent initiatives.#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title="">[3]

#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title="">[1] Global Witness, A Crude Awakening: The Role of the Oil and Banking Industries in Angola’s Civil War and the Plunder of State Assets. London: Global Witness, December 1999.

#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title="">[3] At the G8 summit in June 2013, David Cameron, British Prime Minister, touted the UK’s Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative as the driver of “a transparency revolution in every corner of the world,” see Mark Tran, “EU’s New Laws will Oblige Extractive Industries to Disclose Payments,” The Guardian, June 12, 2013.

Behind SARW’s appointment are the various activities since 2010 to tackle the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Great Lakes Region, the Alternative Summit on the margins of ICGLR Heads of State Special Summit.

The mining industry contributes significantly to the hardship experienced by black women in rural areas of South Africa. For decades, mining houses have drawn in young black men for labour, only for many to return home sick, with little to show for years spent toiling underground.